Old hammer cemetery
Coordinates: 53 ° 33 ′ 21.3 " N , 10 ° 3 ′ 25.7" E
The Alte Hammer Friedhof is a former cemetery in the Hamburg district of Hamm . It was consecrated in 1693 together with the first Hammer Church and was used until 1894. Once the preferred burial site of Hamburg's upper class, it contains numerous tombs of personalities from Hamburg's history and was the first Hamburg cemetery to be listed as a historical monument in 1923 due to its cultural-historical importance .
location
The cemetery is located next to the Dreifaltigkeitskirche on Horner Weg, not far from the Hammer Kirche underground station .
history
Since the 17th century Hamm was a preferred place of residence for wealthy Hamburg merchants. Around 1690 they initiated the construction of the Ham and Horns Church of the Holy Trinity at their own expense , which was consecrated in 1693. A cemetery was also created along with the church. At first burials were also carried out in the church, until this was banned in 1829 for hygienic reasons.
Due to its scenic location on the Geest slope with a wide view of the Hammer Marsch, which was still undeveloped at the time, the cemetery soon became one of the preferred burial places for families from Hamburg's upper class; at the same time, its design at the beginning of the 19th century served as a model for the then newly opened Hamburg cemeteries in front of the dam and stone gate .
Because of the great demand, new burial places were created from 1862 next to the existing Jacobi cemetery on Wandsbeker Chaussee , today 's Jacobipark in the Eilbek district . In 1894 the old cemetery was closed and in 1923 it was the first burial place in Hamburg to be listed as a historical monument.
During the Second World War, the cemetery was badly damaged in the course of Operation Gomorrah and the old church was completely destroyed. In the first post-war years, a wooden emergency church was built on the site . In the course of the new construction of today's Dreifaltigkeitskirche (1956/57) several grave sites were relocated and the cemetery was partially redesigned. Since the turn of the millennium, the cemetery has once again been carefully and gradually redesigned.
description
The cemetery area is roughly divided into three areas, which are also structurally separated:
Historic churchyard with individual graves
The western part immediately around the church corresponds to the actual historical churchyard . Most of the surviving tombstones and crypt slabs are also located here , but only a few in their original location. Most of them have been relocated and rearranged several times over the last few decades. Among those once buried here are numerous senators and mayors such as B. Amandus Augustus Abendroth , Johann Arnold Günther , Caspar Hartung (1795–1863), Cornelius Wilhelm Poppe (1742–1801), Johann Hinrich Rücker (1750–1803), Joachim Nicolaus Schaffshausen (1771–1830) as well as several pastors of the Trinity Church.
War memorials
The middle part of the cemetery consists of a large meadow with only a few individual graves in the edge area. In the middle of the meadow there has been an iron death house by the artist Ulrich Lindow since 2007 , which commemorates both the victims of National Socialism and those who perished in the destruction of the district in the course of Operation Gomorrah in 1943 . It bears an inscription based on the Our Father on two opposite sides :
“ Forgive us our debts.
In memory of the people who have become victims of guilt and suffering. From 1933 to 1945 violence and terror, murder and extermination were carried from German soil into the world of nations. Individuals, groups, minorities and peoples were systematically persecuted, harassed, tortured and murdered in camps in the name of National Socialist Germany. A war of extermination, stripped of all laws and regulations, was unleashed, in the shadow of which European Jewry was almost completely murdered.
Just as we forgive our debtors.
In the end, violence and destruction struck back on German soil. The "firestorm", triggered by the Allied bombing of Hamburg in July 1943, tore tens of thousands of people from Hamm to their deaths. The Hamm district and the old Trinity Church sank into rubble, ashes and dust. The only bell that has survived from the old Trinity Church calls for remembrance and repentance and admonishes peace. Direct our feet on the path of peace. "
The aforementioned bell inside the memorial is struck every Friday at 3 p.m.
In the 1920s, the Hammer parish erected a three-part war memorial for the fallen of the First World War on this very spot . In 1946 it was moved a little further east to its current location to make room for the emergency church.
A third, significantly smaller memorial stone from 1818 is located at the foot of the mausoleum hill that adjoins the meadow to the east. Its inscription MDCCCXIV - Dedicated to Christian graves in the winter of siege reminds us that during the French occupation of Hamm in 1813/14, numerous villagers who had been driven from their houses lived in holes in the ground and died in the vaults of the cemetery .
Sieveking crypt and Wichern graves
At the eastern end of the cemetery, in a small, artificially created hill, is the crypt of the Sieveking family with its crowning tomb, at the same time one of the most important examples of Hamburg's tomb art of the 19th century. It was commissioned in 1828 by the Hamburg council syndicate Karl Sieveking and completed in 1832 on private property that was not yet part of the cemetery. Sieveking commissioned the architect Alexis de Chateauneuf , who at the time also converted and expanded Sieveking's “ Hammer Hof ” estate, to carry out the work . The bronze reliefs on the front of the granite building are by Eduard Schmidt von der Launitz and show an angel at the grave of Christ and the coats of arms of the Sieveking and Chapeaurouge families . In addition to the builder and his wife Caroline Henriette (1797–1858), his mother-in-law Elisabeth Dorothea de Chapeaurouge († 1828) and his cousin Amalie Sieveking are also buried here.
At the foot of the crypt hill, bordered on three sides by a wrought iron fence, there is - in addition to the already mentioned memorial stone to the victims of 1813/14 - a small memorial stone for the freedom fighter Anna Lühring as well as the grave of Johann Hinrich Wichern , who in 1833 with the help of his friend Sieveking founded the Rauhe Haus as a "rescue facility for neglected children". In addition to Wichern, his mother Caroline and his wife Amanda (1810–1888), who is also involved in poor relief, are buried here.
Other graves (selection)
- Elise Averdieck , writer and social reformer
- Ernst Philipp Ludwig Calmberg (1794–1851), professor at the Johanneum
- Hermann Gries (1810–1892), senior senior secretary
- Friedrich Karl Kraft , Rector of the Johanneum
- Johannes Lehfeldt (1866–1929), pastor in Hamm
- Georg Luis , architect
- Ernst Adolph Moraht (1833–1879), pastor in Hamm
- Hermann Mumssen (1804-1859), pastor in Hamm
- Johann Heinrich Ohlendorff (1788–1857), art gardener and first inspector of the Hamburg Botanical Garden
- Otto Palmer (1840–1905), pastor in Hamm
- Edward James Smith (1779–1854), English engineer and (co-) founder of Hamburg's water art
- Karl Gottfried Zimmermann (1760–1826), pastor in Hamm
literature
- Eberhard K Händler: burial grove and crypt. The tombs of the upper class on the old burial grounds in Hamburg. Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-7672-1294-3 .
- Barbara Leisner, Norbert Fischer : The cemetery guide. Walks to known and unknown graves in Hamburg and the surrounding area. Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-7672-1215-3 , pp. 138-142.
- Michael Reiter: The hammer cemetery. A historical guide. Ahrensbök 1988.
- Adolf Diersen: From the history of the Hammer Dreifaltigkeitskirche. Holzminden 1957.
